Carella: City doesn't make case for denying parking space

Updated 9:04 pm, Thursday, April 18, 2013

Vito Santarsiero sits in his car on the driveway of his home on Albin Road in Stamford, Conn., on Thursday, April 18, 2013. Santarsiero's wife, Joann, uses a cane and has back, hip and leg problems. The Santarsieros have asked the city for a handicapped space in front of their house because their driveway is too narrow to allow Joann to exit the vehicle, but they have been denied twice.
Photo: Lindsay Perry

Vito Santarsiero stands with his car on the street outside his home on Albin Road in Stamford, Conn., on Thursday, April 18, 2013. Santarsiero's wife, Joann, uses a cane and has back, hip and leg problems. Because their driveway is too narrow to allow Joann to exit the vehicle, the couple has asked the city for a handicapped space on the street where they usually park. They said the space is often taken without the offical sign, many times illegally by people who walk to Cove Island Park. The Santarsieros' request has been denied twice.
Photo: Lindsay Perry

Vito Santarsiero stands with his car on the street outside his home...

Vito Santarsiero stands with his car on the driveway of his home on Albin Road in Stamford, Conn., on Thursday, April 18, 2013. Santarsiero's wife, Joann, uses a cane and has back, hip and leg problems. The Santarsieros have asked the city for a handicapped space in front of their house because their driveway is too narrow to allow Joann to exit the vehicle, but they have been denied twice.
Photo: Lindsay Perry

The driveway at 30 Albin Road in the Cove is narrow, walled by a chain-link fence on one side and a stockade fence on the other.

It means Vito and Joann Santarsiero can't swing the doors of their 1993 Mercury open all the way. That's a problem for Joann, who is unable to get in and out of the car unless the door is angled at 90 degrees.

Joann Santarsiero, 66, has a degenerative condition in her hip and knee joints that is painful and limits movement. She cannot maneuver without a cane.

So Vito Santarsiero, 67, decided to take a cue from his neighbors. Some of them got the city to create a handicapped parking space in front of their homes, meaning only cars with a state-issued placard or license plate can be parked there. The fine is $150 for the first offense and $250 for each subsequent offense.

A crew from the city comes to your house and places a pair of signs at the curb to mark out a space. The signs have a blue background and white lettering and show a stick figure in a wheelchair. They say, "Handicapped parking. State permit required."

Vito Santarsiero went to City Hall to find out how to get signs for 30 Albin Road. He estimates he made 15 trips to City Hall before he got his answer.

It was no. He was told it's because his house doesn't have an access ramp. He doesn't get that, Santarsiero said.

"I've been driving around, and I see these signs in front of houses in the Cove, Glenbrook, Springdale, all over Stamford," he said. "Not one of them has a ramp."

Looking at his neighbor's homes, it's not immediately clear why they need handicapped parking spaces. The home at 120 Webb Ave. has a wide driveway connected to a path to the front door. The home at 12 Webster Road has a flat driveway that offers an unobstructed path to the front entrance.

The need isn't clear, either, for two homes in Springdale. One at 167 Knickerbocker Ave. has a short, steep driveway that would be difficult for someone who uses a cane, walker or wheelchair. But the front yard is paved, with a space beside the front steps.

The most difficult to understand is the home at 16 St. Charles Ave. It has a long, flat driveway that allows access to the front and rear entrances.

So what is the criteria for deciding which homes qualify for a handicapped parking space?

There is no written policy, said Director of Operations Ernie Orgera, the city's traffic authority.

When a request comes in, an Operations supervisor visits the home to see whether there is a ramp or other handicapped access and whether the neighborhood is congested with parked cars, Orgera wrote in an email. The supervisor also looks at the distance from the home to the front curb, where the handicapped space would be.

The supervisor who visited the Santarsiero house denied their request because their chain-link fence surrounds the yard, blocking access to the front door, Orgera wrote. So if you park in the street you still have to walk down the driveway.

Orgera wrote that he later visited the home himself, presumably because Vito Santarsiero persisted with his request, sometimes waiting in the hallway outside Orgera's office for an hour.

Orgera wrote that he spoke to Joann Santarsiero, who told him she could not open the car door wide enough when it is parked in the driveway. She also said "that she did not like the fact that the neighbor across the street was parking several vehicles in front of her house," Orgera wrote.

It's unclear whether Orgera discounted the part about the narrow driveway and denied the Santarsiero request because he thinks they are trying to stop people from parking in front of their house.

"When people are parked in front of our house, we put our car in front of our driveway then move it when they leave," Vito Santarsiero said. "The city just won't understand. My wife is getting worse as the months go on.

"She has to sit in the car and swing her legs in and out. On the street, we can throw the door open and have all the space she needs," he said. "It's getting in and out of the car that's the problem, not walking the 25 or 30 feet from the street to the house.

"How does the city know that all the people who request handicapped spaces aren't doing it to stop people from parking in front of their house?" he said.

There does seem to be a pattern among houses that have handicapped parking spaces. They are in congested neighborhoods. And few neighborhoods are more congested than the Cove.

Homeowners on Santarsiero's street of modest Capes and small yards put up fences because they are two blocks from Cove Island Park. In warm months beach-goers who don't want to pay for parking passes to Cove Island jam their cars onto neighboring streets, narrowing them to one lane, blocking driveways, sometimes parking on lawns, urinating and dumping garbage.

"Once a guy parked in my driveway. I had to get his car towed out," Vito Santarsiero said. "A few hours later he came back and knocked on my door. He said, `Why'd you tow my car?' "

At Cove neighborhood meetings, he hears stories about small homes where 12 or 15 people live, bringing only a mattress and paying $200 a month in rent, Santarsiero said.

"It's illegal. This is a single-family zone. If there are cars parked everywhere, that's why. What is the city doing about that?" he said.

He still doesn't understand the criteria for obtaining a handicapped space, Santarsiero said.

Not all municipalities handle it as Stamford does. Allen Corry, director of parking services for Greenwich, said he assesses each request, obtains a doctor's note from the homeowner, then makes a recommendation to the Board of Selectmen.

"I am not the approving authority," Corry said. "The selectmen are. They say yea or nay."

The board recently rejected a request from a homeowner who had a large driveway that provided access to the front and back entrances, Corry said. The man wanted a handicapped space on the street because he could not turn his neck to check for cars as he pulled out of his driveway.

But that's the reason Orgera approved a space for the owner of 16 St. Charles Ave., the one with the long, flat driveway that stretches from the front of the house to the back.

"The person had a neck injury and could not turn her head to back in or out of the driveway," Orgera said in an email.